Seeing the forest, beyond the trees: dimensionality of context specific Organizational Citizenship Behaviour in a Sri Lankan context

Abstract

Factor analyses of existing measures of Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) administered across different contexts and country settings demonstrate cross-setting consistency and support a common dimensionality for OCB irrespective of context. Challenging the use of generic models of OCB are concerns over the local relevance of such generic models and the substantial variation in OCB dimensionality in different country settings found through research using inductive qualitative methods. Even though these findings give conflicting understandings of the context specificity of OCB, a review of literature found no studies that subjected qualitatively derived dimensions to factor analysis. This research uses factor analyses to test a qualitatively derived, context-specific OCB model to explore the context specificity of OCB. University academic staff in Sri Lanka participated in two studies. Findings support a generally accepted two-factor model and not the context specific model. The findings suggest that even when high contextual variations in constructs seem evident, conceptual similarity at a more general level may be present. Past research exploring OCB conceptualisations have used either qualitative or quantitative methods. While qualitative methods indicate complex and contextually specific dimensions, quantitative methods support simpler models with more general applicability. The findings suggest that even when the model and items are localised, factor analyses support a general OCB model.